1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a support system and more particularly to a support system by which a support providing party such as a support center supports the apparatus to be supported, delivered to each user.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a controller 2 also called an ECU (Electronic Control Unit) has been installed in a vehicle 1 and various signals are transferred between a control mechanism of the vehicle 1 and the controller 2 for the controller 2 to perform electronic control of the vehicle 1, as shown in FIG. 11(a).
For example, as shown in FIG. 11(b), signals indicating the engine speed, the vehicle speed, etc., detected by various sensors placed in the vehicle 1 are sent to an ECU 2a for engine control, which then performs predetermined calculation processing based on the sent signals and sends the calculation result (for example, signal to control the fuel oil consumption, the ignition timing, the bypass air amount, etc.,) to the control mechanism of an actuator, etc., placed in the vehicle 1 for totally performing ignition timing control, knock control, idle speed control, etc., centering on fuel oil consumption control.
The signal input to the ECU 2a for engine control and the signal output therefrom change from moment to moment and further some of the signals, such as the signals indicating the engine speed, the vehicle speed, etc., and the control signals, change while they depend on each other.
Thus, to perform operation check and performance evaluation of the ECU 2a for engine control, the ECU 2a for engine control needs to be installed in the actual vehicle 1 or a control measurement system 3 as shown in FIGS. 12 and 13 for simulating the behavior of the vehicle 1 (namely, putting into mathematical expression and performing calculation processing) needs to be used.
The control measurement system 3 includes a computer 4, a measurement board and rack 5, and an ECU interface box 6. The computer 4 includes a microcomputer 7 having a control measurement unit 8 registering application software for performing operation check and performance evaluation of the ECU 2a for engine control, etc., using the measurement board and rack 5, an input unit 9, and a display unit 10.
The measurement board and rack 5 includes a CPU board 11 for performing various types of data processing and simulation calculations (model calculations), an I/O control board 12, an analog input board 13, an analog output board 14, a digital input/output board 15, a pulse input/output board 16, and a variable resistor board 17.
The measurement board and rack 5 simulatedly calculates the state amounts of the parts of the vehicle 1 (for example, the engine speed, the vehicle speed, etc.,) based on the control signals sent from the ECU 2a for engine control and input elements input from the computer 4, and returns the calculation result to the ECU 2a for engine control through the ECU interface box 6.
That is, the control measurement system 3 is a system that can execute HIL (Hardware In the Loop) simulation and such a system is used as a vehicle model instead of the actual vehicle 1, whereby it is made possible to drastically decrease the weight of operation check and performance evaluation of the ECU 2a for engine control using the actual vehicle 1 and facilitate development of control logic, etc.
By the way, for a system for executing HIL simulation, such as the control measurement system 3, often the user changes setting of software and hardware as the user desires. Thus, it is difficult for the support providing party (for example, support center) to precisely keep track of the setup state (for example, I/O port assignment state), the operation state (for example, CPU load factor), etc., of each system.
For example, the user can design a vehicle model as desired using MATLAB/SIMULINK (registered trademark) of a control system design tool of The Math Works USA, etc., and I/O port assignment, numeric value conversion expression in I/O port (for example, conversion between voltage and physical value), calculation period, the number of sampling data pieces in one period, and the like are set based on the design.
Thus, it is difficult for the support providing party to keep track of the setup state, of course, and the support providing party cannot keep track of the operation state in the control measurement system 3 for realizing a vehicle model designed as desired by the user (for example, use frequency, CPU load factor, user operation procedure, model scale, failure state).
Therefore, if the support providing party receives a communication of a failure or a defective condition of the control measurement system 3 from the user, there is a problem of the incapability of quickly offering appropriate advice. The support person needs to make a visit to the place where the system is delivered to precisely keep track of the state depending on the situation; there is a problem of requiring much time and large cost.
When a new commodity that can be used with the control measurement system 3 is developed, if the support person cannot precisely keep track of the setup state or the operation state of the control measurement system 3 delivered to each user, there is a problem for the support person to be unable to properly determine which commodity is to be introduced to which user.